Counterpoint
by Yrfeloran
Summary: Mainframe's resident virus discovers that being Bob has consequences - namely, being Bob.
1. Prologue

_Author's Note: A very different take on 'My Two Bobs'.  What if…_

They added a new subroutine to the Guardian protocol. Hardwired it, actually.  It's supposed to prevent infections like Daemon from ever getting hold again.

What it feels like, though, is constant doubt, an evaluation of all my actions even before I do them. My processor speed's been boosted to handle it, but I hate it. I really do.

The keytools are gone, all of them except Glitch. Between this new infection subroutine and dealing with an integrated keytool, it's hard to find time for myself. And for Dot.

Of course, the _other me has __no problems there. _

Turbo keeps asking me to ask Glitch where the other keytools are. I know he feels incomplete without Copeland – I went through much the same in the Web – but he hasn't seemed to grasp that I really _am Glitch now and I haven't the slightest idea. _

I'm not allowed to be Glitch though. Dot forbids me going into games, so it's always the _other one and Matrix prancing around and saving the day. I feel like a 2 in a binary system, sometimes. So I have to go down to the depths of G-Prime and keep an eye on the neo-virals._

Have I mentioned I hate neo-virals? Viral drones really have no choice, and viruses are simply coded to be malicious, but people who willingly serve viruses – they had a choice. I have very little sympathy for them. But, given I can't use Glitch's functions for anything, or go into games, I need something to do. My Guardian protocol is going spin-crazy.

So, here I am, in the warrens of G-Prime, hunting down rumors that a few viral binomes have reappeared. Given that even Hexadecimal couldn't resist the scan forever, this is troubling. Either their infections somehow carried over, or a virus other than Hex has been in Mainframe since the restart. 

Mouse wants to see if the rumors are true, or just neo-viral propaganda – wants to take a look at the code of these supposed virals. Dot wants to figure out where Megabyte got his seemingly transfinite numbers of ABCs, and see if the process can be applied to CPU production, improving system efficiency. The _other Bob wants me out of his way. _

            So, here we are, Mouse and I, down on Level 42 of G-Prime, eyeing the foundations of Mainframe: strange crisscrossing wireframe girders rooted in the data sea. A murky reflection of the underworks can be seen in the rippling sea. Slowly moving on the rails was a platform with the wireframes of familiar structures on it.

Mouse whistled softly. "I think we've found our ABCs."

I frowned, seeing the swarms of activity on the platform. "But…they're still being built!" I glanced around, noting other platforms nestled among the rails with finished products on them. "This place is active, and I'm pretty sure that's viral work right there."

The platform reached the next stop on its assembly line and binomes swarmed over it. I frowned. "Is this just an automatic process, or is Megabyte back?"

"Could be another virus, sugah, using Megabyte's infrastructure."

"I guess…" I said. It really wouldn't be like Megabyte to lie low. The virus was really a drama queen, when all was said and done. He wanted attention as much, if not more, than he wanted power. But any virus infiltrating the system with us unawares was bad news. "Let's take a closer look."

            The closer look confirmed a viral infestation, and the presence of Megabyte's 'Doktor'. The sadistic scientist had never been one of my favorite binomes - the enthusiasm he put into his grisly work was nauseating. 

            Mouse and I were on the platform now. Taking the straightforward approach, I walked up to the Doktor…and then stopped in my tracks, staring at the green and black viral icon he was sporting.

            Spam. Spam and batch. This was not good.

            The binome turned towards me, unsettlingly, with a worshipful look in his eyes. "Mein Grossenbyte…Maus?" He frowned at Mouse behind me, who drew her katana as I tackled the stunned virus. Pinning him to the ground, I looked around at the other drones. They were going about their business as if nothing was happening. Mindless automatons. I shuddered.

            "Okay, li'l fella." Mouse grinned down at the Doktor in a disturbing fashion. "Time to take a look at your code."

            The viral struggled under me, but Mouse palmed the icon. Herr Doktor looked appalled. "Nein! Nein!"  His I/O was, as usual, a bit scrambled, running on a slightly different protocol than Supercomputer standard. I wondered vaguely where he had acquired it.  

            Of course, just as Mouse was about to get a profile of the infection and run a comparative analysis, the User decided to play with us again.

**//WARNING : INCOMING GAME\\ **

I automatically pinpointed the coordinates of the game in question, coming down over an adjacent sector. I vid-windowed the Principle Office, telling them Mouse and I would handle it, then closed the window before Dot could protest. I might not be able to reboot, but I was still the best gamer in the system. 

We had to take a detour, dragging Herr Doktor with us, to reach the game. It seemed to take forever for the cube to drop down to us, but it did. We, the Doktor, and the drone binomes all materialized in what seemed to be some sort of 'forest'. I accessed the gamestats…it was…a hunting game?

"The User has to shoot all the 'prey' in a time limit.  How…gruesome."

Mouse shrugged. "So, how do I work this?"

            I blinked at her for a moment, while the Doktor took his icon back. "Like so, ja?" He rebooted into a large animal, though he still had those viral eyes. I grimaced, then turned to Mouse 

**            "Double-click your icon." I said. "Say Reboot." A thought struck me. "You've _never done this before?"_**

            "The Mouse doesn't do games," she smirked at me. I rolled my eyes, and then dived to the ground as a shot was fired.

As the echoes faded, we turned to Herr Doktor, who was already collapsing, and stared. Too late, it clicked – we hadn't rebooted, so we weren't valid targets. 

It had all gone too fast. We hadn't even seen the User.****

**\\GAME OVER : USER WINS//**

**            _And then, there was one…_**

A sudden power spike blared alarms. Dot stared at the readings in disbelief. "The game….what's happening? Specky, I want an explanation now!" 

"Well, ma'am…" the binome blustered…but the system voice answered us first. As it began its proclamation, Dot's eyes went wide.   
           "It's too soon! It can't…"   
  
**\\GAME OVER : USER WINS//**   


Then there was silence in the War Room. I myself was stunned for a few moments. After all this time, all the struggles…a Game? A mere Game? Before I really thought about what I was doing, I was running out of the Principal Office, jumping onto my zip-board, and heading for Ghetty Prime. 

No one tried to stop me. Why would they? After all, I was their precious Guardian. I presumably knew what I was doing. 

As an afterthought, though, I disabled my beacon so I couldn't be directly vid-windowed. Right now, I didn't want to be disturbed.   
  


An aching pain spread throughout my body from my icon, which happened to be a valid Guardian protocol. I winced, but kept going. Mouse's little virus-check program was painful when it triggered, but not debilitating. Her last little gift to the Collective- and though she didn't know it, her last revenge on me. 

I descended into the pit of the ruined sector. Down, and down further…to the very bottom of Mainframe, floating high above the energy sea. The true heart of Ghetty Prime: Level 42 – heavy manufacturing. The last known location of Guardian Bob, now smashed into chaos and infested by nulls. In addition, I had lost an ABC fabricator – but for some reason that seemed insignificant next to everything else. 

It was not hard to spot what was left of Mouse- that unusual orange-static blob could hardly be anyone else. I felt an immediate satisfaction, followed swiftly by…regret? 

Where did that come from? I suppressed the errant emotion, feeling a twinge of pain from my icon as I did so. I was stronger than Mouse's code, I knew it. None of her little parlor-tricks could contain a virus of my caliber for long. 

After all, not even the Web could hold me. 

It seemed like a lost cause, trying to find what was left of Bob amongst the nulls, but I was determined to do it. If he was gone, I wanted proof. 

I reckoned myself far enough from the Principal Office to risk transformation. Snarling, I prepared myself to change. It was a simple matter of unfolding my true code from the shell I was using. Usually simple, anyway. 

I pushed out inwardly, warping my Bob-form past recognition. I hissed in satisfaction as the claws emerged from my weak sprite fingers.

And then the pain hit. I screamed, trying to rip the offending icon off of my chest- but it burned to touch. I would beat this, I would! I put all of my power into this one, simple change…and it wasn't enough.

Exhausted, I collapsed, my skin smoothing over again, a fourth finger painlessly budding again. The cursed Guardian icon gleamed black and gold as it remade my clothing format. I grabbed it again, intending to rid myself of it once and for all, and to Dell with my charade – but I could not bear to touch it. 

What was happening to me? The shell…the shell was resisting transformation. I was trapped, in this weak, useless sprite body…which did have _some advantages, but…it wasn't mine._

The spammed Guardian was probably laughing his ASCII off at my plight from the Ethernet. It was just the sort of thing that would amuse him. I found it darkly funny myself – but perhaps that was just the shell thinking. I couldn't tell.

And it frightened me in a way that nothing else ever had.

I walked to the shattered code remnant of my assembly plant, stepping lightly onto the deck. It wobbled under me, but stayed intact. A flash of silver caught my eye, and I gave chase, but the blue-and-silver null took shelter under some debris that had fallen from above. I took a look under the sheet of metal, cautiously. Light reflected off something…something that lunged at me!

I shielded my fragile sprite eyes automatically, and felt whatever it was hit my arm with some speed. After a nano, I cautiously took a look.

_Thrice-spammed spawn of the Great Worm…_

I felt my code spooling out, and I shivered. I wasn't sure if this was some User's idea of a sick joke, or some sort of revenge from beyond the Recycle Bin – or perhaps a bad dream. Dreams were one aspect of sprite emulation that I had not yet completely adjusted to. There were many. Fortunately, the people of Mainframe seemed to overlook my occasional faux pas as just me being…Bob. Dorky grin and all. I winced, then addressed the offending object.

"You do know that I intend to crush the spirit of this system for revenge, brutally slaughter most of the city, make the rest wish they were dead, and then move on to the Supercomputer and obliterate the Guardian Academy?"

Glitch beeped and whirred, a happy face showing on its display.

            I shrugged. "Just letting you know…"  The presence of the keytool was…off-putting, to say the least. Especially linked into my code. I suspected the keytool was up to something, to be honest. I'd seen enough evidence that I believed Glitch was actually a good deal more intelligent than his Guardian. 

Of course, I was his guardian now. _There was a disturbing thought. My Trojan horse abilities had been disabled by the Guardian protocol, which I could not remove. It was, I belatedly saw, a good deal more potent than I had thought. In the eyes of Ms. Matrix and the others – I was Bob. I even had the spammed keytool. _

My file path appeared to have been programmed for me. Mending and bloody defending this backwater system, as my least favorite sprite. I couldn't think of a crueler punishment. And I had walked right into it, blindly.

"I hope you're happy with yourself." I muttered at the blue and silver null as it slithered out from under the metal sheet. Predictably, it ignored me. 


	2. Encounter

_I return from the Web, from corruption and torment, to this place.   
Mainframe.   
My format: Trojan Horse. The perfect spy. The perfect saboteur.   
But where is the line drawn between an exact copy and the original?   
I am losing myself, losing my purpose, betraying my function.   
But…is that so wrong?_   
  


**ReBoot****: Counterpoint**

Every eye in the War Room was trained on me as I walked heavily through the door, my face a blank mask that rivaled any of Hexadecimal's. Dot's eyes flickered down to Glitch, and she nodded grimly, her lips thinning. 

The calm in the Office seemed forced. Nobody was crying, or panicking – everyone was in a state of shock. Ms. Matrix herself abruptly walked out of the War Room. Nobody tried to stop her. After a few more awkward moments, I was startled by a large hand on my shoulder. My instinctive reaction was to unsheathe my claws and go for the throat, but not only was that extremely unadvisable in this situation, it was impossible in the weak state I had trapped myself in. I merely tensed under the hulking brute's grasp. Dot's thug of a brother was quite literally the last person I was interested in seeing right now. 

"If you want to talk…?" Matrix asked, hesitantly.

"No." I snapped. Maybe too harshly – he seemed taken aback. I shook off his grip impatiently, taking a hesitant step towards the door.

The part of me that was, well, Bob, insisted I should go after Dot. In the unstable state I was in, it might not be a good idea, but…it was what Bob would do.

I gloomily foresaw an eternity of doing what Bob would do. It wasn't that Bob had a bad life, it was just that it so diametrically opposed to my original function that I felt I should be outraged, furious even.

I wasn't. I was afraid. Bob's life felt _right, in a way that my own never had. I didn't feel the constant hunger for power, for domination, for acknowledgement. I still desired these things, but it was not an imperative._

However, there were certain aspects of me no diabolically tense code of Mouse could erase. Or at least, I hoped that was so. I clung desperately to what was left of myself, even though it hurt me to do so. 

I would not let this setback keep me from my function. I would play the game as best I could, learning to be Bob, live his life, steal his future.

And when the opportunity to commandeer true power arose, I would seize it if I was worthy. I was strong. I would survive this trial, like I had so many others.

If I did not…it did not bear thinking about. 

I went to find Ms. Matrix. It was not difficult. She was sitting in the diner, fielding an insane number of messages at once, immersing herself in her work. I slid into the seat next to her.

            "Dot?" I asked. Ms. Matrix had the mulish look on her face I was used to seeing on her larger brother. She was staring fixedly into space, stabbing options on her organizer as if she was trying to delete them. I reached gently to the nearest vid-window, canceling it. She glared at me, almost crying.

"Are you okay, Dot?"

She slammed the organizer down on the table. "No!" How could I be okay? I should have stopped him, stopped them!"

"It's not your fault…" I tried.

"I'm the FAQing Command.Com!" her voice rose shrilly. "Of course it's my fault! I'm supposed to be the common sense for the entire spammed system!"

I stayed silent. I had encountered Ms. Matrix in a similar state once before, when I had cornered her in Megaframe with several ABCs and opened a vid-window to 'negotiate'. 

The ABC casualties were total.

"He said he wouldn't leave me! He promised!"  
"Sometimes," I ventured, "promises can't be kept."

She glared at me. "I want yours."

"What?" I blinked.

"Promise me you'll never leave me. Promise me!"

I stared at her a moment, then slowly shook my head. "I can't do that, Dot." This was beginning to head in a very awkward direction.

"Oh?" Dot's voice dropped to 'dangerous purr', and I looked nervously to the door. There wasn't any way I could make it in time. I had to ride this one out.

User help me.

I raised my hands a bit defensively. "What do you want from me, Dot?"

"I want you to _stay for once, spammit! Don't leave me alone again!"_

"You have Matrix. AndrAIa. Phong, even."

She prodded my chest. "But I want _you. How hard is that to grasp?"_

I ran a hand through my hair wearily. "Trust me, Dot, you don't want me. You want him."

"I think after all we've been through, I can make up my own mind!" 

I grabbed her hand. "Listen to me, Dot! You know what happened today, in the Game. I'm not going to make a promise to you I can't keep!" The raw sincerity behind my words shocked even me. True, there was more than a bit of common sense involved – if I did anything at all to Dot, and blew my cover, Matrix wouldn't hold back. And there was no place where I was as likely to reveal myself as in the intrigues of a sprite relationship. As a virus, I could take him, perhaps. Not as Bob. But still, there was that something else…that didn't want to hurt her. 

She was quiet for a moment. "You're leaving, aren't you."

I avoided her eyes. 

She sighed heavily and turned away.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. But Turbo needs me. The guardians need their keytools back. They need to talk to Glitch." Truth, again. For the most part.

"The Supercomputer, then." she muttered.

"Yes." I wanted to see the great city for myself. Wanted it more than anything. It had always been my goal.

"Fine," she said, flatly. "I won't stop you."

I blinked, not expecting that. Surprised, I looked up, and her eyes pinned me.

"Do you love me, Bob?"

I closed my eyes, searched within myself for an answer. Obviously only one answer would be acceptable…but…

I held Ms. Matrix in great esteem. Not only did she effectively and invisibly govern a system at peace, but at war she was a ruthlessly intelligent opponent. Her plans were often devilishly complicated, and often worked despite that. Ms. Matrix was my most dangerous adversary, the one who could anticipate me best, and the one I respected most. Did I, as the virus Megabyte, love her?

I doubted it. As a virus, I was incapable of love – it was a weakness that was incompatible with my goals. As a sprite, though, with the code of Guardian 452 dominant…

"Yes." I said, simply. And it was truth, again. 

She smiled sadly at me. "When are you leaving?"

"I don't know." I said quietly.

"Bob….if you can't promise to stay with me forever…"

I turned to look at her.

She stared in my eyes, a half-smile dancing around her lips. "Will you at least promise me tonight?"

When she looked at me like that, I could hardly refuse.


	3. Entrenchment

I had retreated to Bob's apartment - well, mine now - to look through his possessions, and discover more about who he was so I could more accurately be him. I held no illusions as to what would happen to me if my charade was seen through after the events of last second. 

The keytool was an oddly heavy weight on my arm. I wondered what exactly it was up to. I knew a little about keytools – that there had only ever been 1024 of them, and that this was the only known one left. I knew they were extremely selective in choosing their guardian, and that many guardians didn't even have keytools. I knew that this particular one had a truly wicked sense of humor. But I did not know what had corrupted Glitch's processor to the extent that he chose me, going through the full exchange of code.  The keytool hadn't even done that with the Matrix boy! 

"What are you up to?" I asked the keytool quietly. "What are you trying to accomplish here?"

I didn't get an answer. I wasn't expecting one. I closed my eyes, swearing to myself. I was a Trojan Horse, after all – I knew to beware of geeks bearing GIFs. 

"Look." I said reasonably. "If you want this to work – I don't know why you would, but let's assume for now that that's the case, I need to be able to understand you. I need to know enough about the Supercomputer to pass as a native. I don't need you sulking for some reason only the User knows. This was _not my idea!"_

Glitch chirped and beeped at me, before I felt a further exchange of code. More of myself I was losing forever. It was for a good cause. I frowned then - that wasn't the right expression. It was for _my cause. A few questioning beeps came from Glitch – I got the general meaning. "It speaks!" I muttered sarcastically to myself.  _

It blatted back.

            I rolled my eyes. "Very well then. Let's see what you can do besides lampposts." I paused as an idea struck me, then grinned widely. "Glitch…BFG."

Glitch swiftly expanded into the six-string guitar I had seen once before. It was, as before, a rather wimpy one. I was appalled at an aesthetic level.

"Oh, come on, you can do better than that." 

The guitar blatted.

I fingered the first chord and grinned wickedly. "I'll play 'Stairway'…"

Alarmed, Glitch abruptly slimmed into a deep blue model with sufficient spikiness for my taste. I _knew the spammed thing was just being stubborn. _

"That's better." I hesitated, my fingers over the strings.

What to play?

I began to improvise, a mournful solo into the night. The guitar wailed with me, as I let out all of the unexpected, unanticipated, unwanted emotional baggage the day had left me in musical form. I poured it all out. The fourth finger was awkward, at first, but it allowed a lot more flexibility in my playing style. I closed my eyes on hitting the last chord, listening to the silence. I was at peace, for a time. It was a novel experience.

"…and at the incredible bargain price of only 99.99.99!"

"Mike…." I groaned, rubbing my temples. "Don't  you have somewhere else to be?" I remembered belatedly that the annoying little cretin actuallybelonged to Bob. 

I had tolerated Matrix, and little Enzo. I could tolerate this. And I did, until he sidled up to me, and attempted, as my 'close personal friend', to interview me on Bob's nullification.

I whirled on him in that instant, willing my claws out of their fleshy sheath. That didn't happen, although it certainly felt like they had ripped my tiny fingers to shreds  in the most painful way possible. Thrice-spammed Guardian protocol.

The TV backed against the wall, gibbering, as I growled. At least I could still do that convincingly. I paused for a moment, then deliberately raised my arm up so that it pointed at him.  
Time to see how far the keytool was prepared to go to maintain this charade. "Glitch. Narrow beam"

The ray impacted a crate mere nanometers from Mike's antenna, spawning a tear. The TV quivered in an amusing fashion. 

That answered my question, as I had been aiming between his eyes. Ah well. Time to improvise. 

"Glitch. Portal." 

The keytool beeped an irritated assent, creating, as I had wished, a portal to a primitive and remote system closed to the net. Perfect. Looking at Mike, I jerked my head in the direction of the portal. 

He gave me a betrayed look. Honestly, was he that dense? I smiled insincerely. "Just think, Mike, an entirely new demographic that has never even heard of a 'Bucket O' Nothing'!"

He still stared at me as he backed into the portal, terrified. It closed behind him, and I frowned. The usual rush of satisfaction I got from such behavior was, this time, tempered by…guilt?

This was unacceptable.


	4. Experiment

_Bob met the gaze of the Prime Guardian a bit nervously, but stood his ground, at attention in Turbo's office. "You wanted to see me, sir?"_

_Turbo waved his hand. "Sit down, son. We need to talk."_

_"Is this about Kilobyte, sir?"_

_The Prime Guardian wearily rubbed his temples. "Not this time. We couldn't have anticipated that. Nobody could – could have saved __Dixon__. This is about you, though, today. You and Glitch, to be exact."_

_"Yes?"_

_"I'll be honest with you, kid. Most of the council is of the opinion that Glitch made the wrong choice with you, especially after your performance on the finals. There are full guardians that would do nearly anything to have a chance at that keytool – you've made a lot of enemies, with your ideas..."_

_"What are you saying?"_

_"I'm saying that, according to the standards set by the Council, you've failed your finals, kid. You're not fit to go on active duty.  Signos told me to my face that I was a fool for not confiscating Glitch immediately. But  I know better than to argue with a keytool that's made its choice. I'm of the opinion that keytool says you're a guardian a lot more than your opinions on necessary deletion. I think that your ideas shouldn't be dismissed offhand, even if they are crazy. I know Glitch wouldn't have made a bad choice."_

_Bob blinked, and said, disbelievingly, "But the Council…You're kicking me out?"_

_"No, son.__ We're putting you on probation."_

_"What?!"___

_Turbo sighed again. "Basically, until you obey the standard protocols, we can't send you to systems expecting a guardian to actually solve their virus problems permanently. We can't keep you here either. However, I've worked out a compromise with the council." He handed Bob a datapad._

_Bob took a few moments to scan the document. An elated grin crossed his face. "I've got a system!"_

_"You've got a responsibility." Turbo corrected. "We're closing this system to the Net. You're going to be the only representative of the Guardian Collective there, and you will be expected to act the part. Your function is to mend and defend. It's a small system, with two powerful viruses, and none of the high-tech toys you've been used to playing with. Back to BASIC. If you can prove your theories on the ground, the council will have to listen. It's not going to be easy, kid. Remember, every life in that system is yours to protect. You have to keep them safe, all of them."_

_"I will. All__ of them"_

_The Prime guardian shook his head. "There's a real world out there, son. It's messy and ugly and unfair- and sometimes you have to make tough choices. Try to make the right ones. I'm putting a lot on the line for you. Glitch, that goes for you too." He looked down at the keytool with a slight smile on his face. "Dismissed."_

I paused the playback, frowning, before calling up the document in question. Something about this was bothering me. I scanned through it.

_…system Mainframe...full Guardian protocols…in regard to your proposed experiment in reprogramming viruses…_

There it was.

I read further. 

After I finished, there was another file to cue up. And another.

How had he hidden this from me?

An offer to send a Viral Incident team in response to a report of me managing to leech energy out of Games – rejected. Rejected! On the one hand, I was furious at how he had played me like an mp3, both overtly and covertly – I hadn't thought him capable of this amount of…well…planning. Futile planning – or was it?

_The only way to induce Megabyte to change is to convince him that the change was his idea all along. However, once given a gentle nudge along that slope field, I believe he will begin to see rationally that legitimate power and respect is a far more useful tool to him than his current 'evil overlord' persona. The need for power could easily become a way to manipulate him, if the predatory nature of his function could be blunted. A reformed Megabyte would not only be a capable administrator, I think, but a brilliant one. Tyranny won't get him out of Mainframe. Eventually, he'll realize that, I hope…_

I drummed my fingers on the table, thinking.

Was he right?

I looked at the facts.

Bob had apparently been trying to reprogram me since the very beginning. Had he succeeded? My distaste at the very idea aside – I had taken his code. Had I been manipulated into doing that? I didn't think so…but on the other hand Bob had given the Matrix boy his protocol before joining me on the Hardware – as if he wasn't expecting to come back. I honestly didn't know if it had been my plots or his that had been furthered that fateful tenth of a second.  

_Dot says you can never trust a virus. I disagree. I maintain that you can always trust a virus to be a virus. _

I began to have the sneaking suspicion that Guardian 452 had known me better than I had known myself…and that I knew him hardly at all. I felt like a pawn in a game beyond either of our comprehensions. My keytool chirped suddenly, and I came to a realization.

"I think." I said to Glitch, slowly, "I begin to see."

The keytool whirred in amusement. Of course…


	5. Entreaty

It was two tenths of a second before the expected call came. I could have used a whole minute. The records of Bob's life that existed were both trivial and extensive – things of importance to me were few and far between. The utter disorganization of his files was a far more effective firewall against my efforts than any encryption would have been. I began to doubt my initial conclusion. Bob's intent was plain, but I as yet saw no evidence that he had actually gone beyond an idea to practical applications. What he had done to my sister appeared to be an accident as much as anything. I had just dismissed the truly disturbing image of her as a _sprite when the vid-window popped open. I confess I was taken off-guard, to say the least._

"Yaaargh!" I said coherently, as I lost my balance and fell off the chair. As I picked myself up, I saw the Prime Guardian almost smiling at my discomfiture. I felt my face twitch, but I was certain nothing else could have betrayed me.

I swear, there must be a 'wacky hijinks' subroutine somewhere in Bob's code – I hit my head on the table getting up. I smiled self-depreciatingly at the vid-window, and hated myself for doing it. "Can I help you, Turbo?"

"I'm at the Principle Office, Bob. We need to talk."

"Er…okay." I said, my mind racing. What could have brought him all the way to Mainframe? "I'll be there in a few nanos." I cancelled the vidwindow, then recompressed my research into a portable notepad, encrypting it as an afterthought before hopping on my zip-board.

One of the things I most liked about being Bob was the zip-boards. It sounds silly, certainly, but zip-boards were beneath my dignity as viral lord of G-Prime. Very few things, however, were beneath Bob's dignity.

It still felt strange to casually walk into the P.O. as if it was nothing. Security waved me past without a second glance. I kept expecting Matrix to go for his Gun, and I tended to keep a nervous eye on him. Of course, everyone else generally did as well, so this went unnoticed. I tensed briefly as an arm snaked around me, then blinked as I was drawn into a kiss.

It was just…astounding. There weren't really words in my vocabulary for how incredible and utterly _other it felt. I was left grinning stupidly for a few nanoseconds after Dot let me up for air. She grinned back, laughter in her eyes. "Good morning, handsome." _

Then Turbo cleared his throat. Dot and I sprang apart guiltily as the Prime Guardian entered the war room. He walked over to us, and I met him in person for the first time.

Prime Guardian Turbo is a rather heavily built sprite, tough as a Linux install, mind and body. Getting to the upper echelons of the Guardian Collective, as with anything, probably required a disgraceful amount of backstabbing and conniving. Turbo wasn't the puppet-ruler format– and I suspected he was a lot cleverer than he let on. He smiled at us. "This isn't the Academy, Bob…I'm not going to expel you for fraternizing…" His eyes immediately strayed to Glitch, integrated into my arm. He drew a breath in.

"Then…the other Bob?"

"Yes." I said, flatly. It was still a bit of an open wound. For my entire existence, Bob had been there, an expected presence. An exasperating one, certainly, but a known factor. I had enjoyed sparring with him, just as I enjoyed matching wits with Ms. Matrix. Having him truly and permanently gone was something I was still adjusting to, along with the thousand other new facts of this life I had to absorb. 

Turbo bowed his head. "I'm sorry."

Dot interjected. "The null experiments are promising. If we can collect data from the games that nullify sprites and binomes, we may be able to recompile their code. I wouldn't give up on them yet."

"Is that why you're keeping Nibbles in that cage?" I asked, curiously.

"_Welman__." Dot corrected frostily. I winced at my slip. Stupid mistakes would get me deleted – and were also __so gauche__. At the look on my face, she softened. "You couldn't have known…that's…that's my father. Hex managed to partially recompile him before…" she paused. "Anyway, we've managed to capture Mouse. We're not sure where Gl…the other Bob is, though I have teams searching the sector still."_

"So…if you have code from the game…you might be able to recompile them?" I asked.

"Exactly." Glitch whirred at me, but I had already made the connection.

"Glitch was in the game, and probably took game-stats. Is that what you'd need?" I couldn't believe I was doing this.

Dot smiled. "It's a start, yes. Phong's creating a prototype machine that will sample the exact game code we'll need though. We'll have to establish a database – up for a project, Bob?"

"Miss Matrix? Begging your pardon," Turbo interjected, "but this technology would be of great interest to the collective. We can get you all the game codes you need, in exchange for any cure you develop."

"That would be perfect. I'll have my people contact your people to work out the details." Turbo nodded, then turned to me.

"A cure for nulls – that would get Collective morale up. I won't lie to you, Bob…the outlook is pretty grim. A lot of the best and the brightest were eliminated in Daemon's takeover, or by this system's defenders. The remaining guardians – some of them did terrible, terrible things under Daemon. A few people have asked me to remove their protocols. More have…taken matters into their own hands. Academy applications have slowed to a trickle, and we might not even have the staff to teach those. And those of us who had keytools – we're the worst hit. Empty…but you know, don't you. We need the keytools to return for the Collective to survive. We need a symbol of hope after Daemon's darkness." He laid his hand on my shoulder. "We need you, Bob. That's what I came here to tell you"

"Me?" I blinked slowly, digesting that. I looked at Dot…who hesitated, then nodded. 

            "Prime Guardian…it would be an honor."


	6. Eschewal

It would be the last time I walked the intricate mazes of G-Prime for some time. I had offlined the manufacturing of my war machines earlier – this was just a farewell, of sorts. Mind, it was only a few octals of drones I was leaving behind, along with my two remaining 'volunteers'. I was curious as to how they had managed to retain their viral code through a system restart, a viral scan, and infection by a supervirus. That level of devotion impressed me greatly. In the case of Sergeant Smiley, it also scared me a bit. 

I looked over the ranks of drones, and then turned to my new 'lieutenant'. Herr Doktor was a great loss, in that he was the only binome I could trust to follow orders as given. Admittedly, he was rather too – enthusiastic – about his work sometimes…but reliable. His deformed binome experiment was more of an unknown quantity. However, there was absolutely no way I was leaving Sergeant Smiley in charge of Mainframe operations.

            "Do you understand?" I asked for the third time. 

The binome scratched his head with his upper arm. "I tAke CAre oF tHe PLaCe WhILe ThE MaSTer iS awAy?"

I hesitated, deciphering that. I hazarded an "Indeed.", then added a "Don't fail me." for good measure. 

            I surveyed the rest of them now, giving them their final orders. "Don't let yourselves be found. Keep one step ahead of the CPUs, and stay frosty." I got a few blank looks with that last phrase, and mentally winced. "Just go," I finally growled. A familiar chime rang, and I looked up.

**//WARNING : INCOMING GAME\\**

**            I had jumped on my zipboard and was ascending as fast as I could by the time the voice had finished intoning the words. The interruption was unexpected but not unwelcome – I felt a little thrill of anticipation. I _needed to be there now – it was in my code.   
            Games held a certain appeal for me now that they hadn't before. The challenge of outwitting the User was a distraction from the challenge of outwitting the rest of Mainframe, and though I had been worried my lack of experience in games would show through, Matrix was happily oblivious. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him – yet. His fishwife/girlfriend/whatever hadn't been accompanying us lately, which was good – she was sharper than him. Not that that was hard, mind. _**

            I made it with nanos to spare. This was the first game since Bob's…unfortunate accident, and I intended to prove that I was better than him. Even at being him, ironically enough.

            ***

"Watery tart? _Watery tart?!__ "    
"I said I was sorry, AndrAIa! It was in the game script!"  
__ I edged away from the two of them. It had been a rather odd roleplaying game we had won – it had made very little sense, even after rebooting. I hadn't been in the scene that Matrix and AndrAIa were arguing over, but I got the general picture. _

"Don't you two need to get that game code sampler back to the Principal Office?" I asked. Predictably, they ignored me.

"I'll show you repression!"

"I wasn't talking about you! And I didn't mean it!"

Finally, I decided that someone needed to be responsible here, even if it was me, and I took the oblong machine to the P.O. myself, leaving the two bickering lovebirds where they were. They seemed to enjoy arguing as much as they enjoyed the inevitable making up afterwards. I didn't quite understand their relationship, but then relationships were rather a new field to me. I knew how to deal with minions, erstwhile allies, enemies, and Hexadecimal, but friendship was far more complex. And love – love seemed completely random. Enjoyable, maybe, but still random. Chaotic. Unplanned.

I was in love, and I didn't have the slightest idea what to do about it. It didn't seem the sort of thing that could be fixed with a software patch, and I was staying as far away from the System Operator as possible in any case. Having him scan me when I returned from the Web had been nervewrenching enough. If anyone could put together the pieces, it would be Phong, who hated me with a passion. Certainly, there was that whole bit with his head in a jar and all, but I had asked him nicely to cooperate first. It still amazed me how people tried to cross me with impunity, and then blamed _me when they suffered the inevitable consequences. _

"Bob." Dot smiled at me, and I smiled back. 

"I've got the codes from this 'Holy Grail' game – have you made any progress?" I ambled over to the null tanks. The Mouse-null was squirming around an enclosure with blocks and a bizarre wheel apparatus. Phong's idea, no doubt. Nibbles was in an adjoining tank, as was…Bob? "You found him, I see."

"Yeah." Dot said. The moment turned awkward. What must it be like for Dot, having to choose between two versions of the man she loved? I didn't know. A part of me enjoyed twisting her life around to my own ends, despite the occasional feelings of remorse. What else could I do? I _needed her…it was in my code now. I was not self-destructive enough to reveal my charade while I still had no control over my powers, and by the time the spammed protocol warped me to that level of desperate honesty, there wouldn't be enough of __me left to mourn. _

"I…." Dot closed her mouth, then resolutely continued. "I'm so grateful that you are…are doing this for me. I know you two have had your…differences. Your code donation might make the difference for the other Bob." I had volunteered most of the free time I had before I transferred to the Supercomputer helping her with her project. Dot was focusing on it almost to the exclusion of everything else. Her experiments in restoring nulls seemed to be very close to a breakthrough. 

I raised a hand to quiet her. "Anything I could do to help. If Glitch's codes can bring back Mouse and the other Bob –  I have to help. I just have to. It's part of who I am." Standard Bob incoherence. I was rather proud of myself, actually. It was the perfect excuse to spend time with her – and I did miss Bob. I wanted to prove to him, once and for all, who was the better of the two of us.

She smiled. "It's part of why I love you." 

Did she just…

I blinked. "But…"


	7. Enamored

_A flash of orange light glinting off something…darkness and decay worse than anything in G-Prime surrounded me. I felt a presence impinging on my dream, one very familiar. _

_"How_ precious_!", she cackled, and I looked down to see my hands still a pale Sprite blue. "I thought to revenge myself upon her, but what you have is too perfect to change…for now." _

_"You're dead. Deleted. Offline." I said, with weakening conviction. _

_"I infect the entire net! I have powers you cannot dream of! Especially not now. Oooh, I can just imagine the chaos unleashed when you fail…this will be worth watching, mmm?" _

_"Silence!__ Shut up!" I snarled at the darkness. "I _will not fail_!" _

_"He's won, you know. You're everything he could have dreamed of…a model citizen! Hah, I should tell him. Only he'd think up some fool heroic scheme to rescue his lady love – you know how he is. But she lost him! She lost, and I won!" _

_"He's _dead_! So are you!" _

_"Like that matters. Hah, you think so mundanely, still. Supercomputer this, Supercomputer that…it's quite amusing." _

_I steadied my mental 'voice' with difficulty. "This is a dream. You aren't real. None of this is." _

_Even in the choking darkness, I could imagine her smiling at me, that cracked face set in her damnable smirk. _

_"Brother dearest, viruses don't dream. As I said…he's won."_

I woke with a start and a muffled scream as _something _dark and spiderlike appeared out of the virtual darkness, crawling towards me. I reflexively flexed my claws…and saw only ineffectually curved fingers by the glow of the blankets in the lesser, safer darkness.

Something moved beside me and I started, still feeling somehow cornered. I forced myself to relax, though. Sleep had not come easily to me these past seconds – I was unused to the necessity of downtime to maintain full functionality. The first dream I had was relatively harmless, but it was not something I had been programmed to deal with – I had been taken completely off-guard. Nothing had helped me sleep better, and other, darker dreams had come, filled with terror and fear…weak sprite emotions that had me in their thrall in the 0-time. In the 1-time, my uptime….there was Ms. Matrix.

Dot….I blinked, as I remembered the past night. She shifted beside me again, looking worriedly at me. "Bob? Are you…okay?"

I let my breath out, let the outstretched hand fall into the energy blanket. "Yeah…I think so…just a bad dream."

She looked at me a bit dubiously, then rolled over over, wrapping a green arm around me. "I didn't think Guardians had nightmares…" she teased. I smiled up at her.

"Well…uh…sorry to disappoint you, but we're not invincible."

"Certainly energetic, though."

"Yes…well…that isn't part of the training, I assure you!" I could feel the flush creeping across my face, as she laughed delightedly. Until this downcycle I hadn't known I was capable of being embarrassed. Dot was frightfully good at discomfiting me – and at times I was secretly, guiltily, embarrassed for her.

However, she immediately showed that she was also quite good at being distracting as well. The casual intimacy was more than acceptable, it was almost welcome. I wasn't expected to talk much, to juggle priceless eggs in variable gravity for the sake of my façade. Here I could let go. Be myself…

_No._

This was not my life, not my form, not my _place. _The grasp I had on my sanity – my true, _viral_, thoughts, was slipping away from me. I was a virus, an infector.  My programmer would be horrified –  I…I was _cuddling _with the system command line interpreter function, without even the slightest inclination to tear her throat out.

Viruses do not cuddle. It's one of the unwritten rules, like the one about wearing beige. What had I become?

Besides inexplicably content and far too complacent about my sadly reduced circumstances, that is…

I was…complacent. Satisfied. I didn't _need_ any more than the little pleasures I had, which was laughable. My function was to corrupt and to conquer.

_Mend and defend…_something inside me whispered traitorously. I stared into space , then pulled Ms. Matrix closer. 

Corrupt and mend? Defend and conquer?  Laughable, really. Not principles one could build a life around. 

Back to BASIC then. There was me, first off, 10. GOTO what was mine – virals, which were in short supply, the sadly stripped sector of Ghetty Prime, and the rather rebellious code of a certain Guardian. The third category had previously been simple – what would be mine. Which was everything else, more or less. 

Mine to do what I saw fit with, all, to delete or reformat at my whim. 

            _All he ever wanted was power… _but what else was there? Impermanence was everywhere I looked. As a virus, I lived on the edge, knowing that not only would nobody care were I deleted, most people would actively speed the process if they were able. In such a world, every mind that did not have fealty to me burned into their very code was a threat to my survival. Every unscripted encounter a Game, with life and death on the line. 

            Dot kissed me enthusiastically. I reciprocated, firmly suppressing the last thought. 

_And when everything is bent to your will, what is left?_

I stared into Dot's eyes, entranced by the devotion I saw there. 

And I answered myself: _Me and mine._


	8. Twilight Zone : Home Away From Home

            So this was the Supercomputer…

            It had seemed a bit of an anticlimax to portal into the Assembly Hall of the Academy – though the enormous expanse did impress me. My eyes were immediately drawn to the pale green throne at the end of the hall, and the wings traced on the window behind it.

            "Yes, that was _hers_." the Prime Guardian said quietly from behind me. "We're leaving it there, for now. A memorial, of sorts...to what we lost." 

            I nodded slowly. I had heard of Daemon, watched the inevitable behind-the-scenes documentary Mike the TV had produced before his unfortunate portal accident. Still, it had not quite sunk in…the story seemed so utterly surreal. Guardians as drones? The entire net under her sway  in the matter of a minute?

            I had the uncomfortable feeling that I had been thinking too small, all along - as I watched the recordings, the ethereal young Cron virus seemed to be smiling at me with hidden amusement. 

            The throne, however, was as real as it got. I looked around, imagining the subdued bustle around me as the quiet efficiency of a viral headquarters, watched over by its serene mistress. 

            It gave me the jaggies. I almost instinctively felt for my protocol, as if in reassurance.

            _Reassurance?___

            Glitch whirred uneasily as well. I finally pulled myself together enough to realize Turbo was still waiting behind me, watching my reaction…

            I turned to Turbo. "I guess…it's just still hard to imagine it happened here…"

            "Oh, it did." the Prime Guardian said quietly "And we can't let it happen again."

            "Of course not." 

            Turbo sighed and turned his back on the throne. "Anyway, Bob, Sciences wants to take a look at Glitch – you understand, right?" I nodded. "And also...how do you feel about teaching at the Academy?"

            "Me?" I blinked. "Er…"

            "It'd just be one class. One of the main weaknesses exposed in our program was the lack of a  more than basic understanding of how viruses think. We made some grievous tactical errors in dealing with Daemon at first, and this resulted in…well." Turbo grimaced. "I know this might seem a bit sudden but you…well, both of you – you and your crazy theories might be worth something after all."

            "Gee, thanks." I said, my eyes narrowing. I did not enjoy being denigrated, even by association with Bob. 

            Turbo continued. "We've arranged quarters in Tower 8 for you and…I'm sure you'll be pleased with them."

            "Academy dorms all over again, eh?" 

            "That's in 6. You know that, Bob." Oh fsck.

            "I was kidding!" I attempted a save in a lighthearted tone of voice.

            "Heh." Turbo did not sound amused. Maybe he was – I couldn't tell with him. The Prime Guardian seemed to be the sort that was used to wielding power, and to being taken seriously while doing so. I wasn't quite sure yet exactly what made him tick. There was certainly more to him than met the eye. 

            "Lunesby!

            A pale yellow sprite hurried over to Turbo's side. "Sir?"

            "Can you take Guardian 452 to his new quarters? I'm needed at a Council meeting."

            The woman nodded. Turbo glanced at me. "Bob, this is my secretary, Lunesby."

            "Pleased to meet you." I smiled. The sprite's blue eyes showed no emotion as she nodded to me.

            "Right this way, if you would sir…"

            I tried to strike up a conversation with Lunesby as we took the public tranzip to Tower 8 from the Spire, with limited success. She was rather drone-like in her responses – seemingly fully integrated with her function as a Guardian – though she was only a Cadet, I noted. Small talk was difficult.

            "So you're Turbo's secretary, then?"

            She nodded. "Yes sir."

            "Are you taking classes as well, or?"

            "I'm doing an internship, sir."

            "Ah…" I nodded. The conversation screeched to a halt. She wasn't even looking out the windows, even though the view was marvelous. 

            The tranzip slowed to a halt, and the front irised open. "This way, sir."

            I followed her through seemingly endless corridors and lifts, getting rather lost, before she stopped in front of a nondescript door. "Here you are, sir."

            "Right." The door, keyed to my icon, opened smoothly. I took a step inside, and stopped dead. I turned to look at Lunesby, but her pale pink hair was already disappearing beyond a corner. Oh dear.

            "Dot?" I asked, incredulously. Ms Matrix was sitting on a bed – my bed from Mainframe! – looking entirely too pleased with herself. Around her was a perfect recreation of my…Bob's old apartment. Every last detail meticulously reconstructed.

            "In case you get homesick," she smiled.

            "Dot…I mean…wow, this is incredible. How did you manage this?"

            "Well, we were uploading Enzo to the Academy in any case, and I thought you might like a nice surprise after a long daycycle.."

            "Nice? This…this is amazing!" I smiled at her. "You're amazing."

            "I know." She grinned cheekily. "Anyway, I wanted to tell you – I've resigned my post as command.com of Mainframe."

            "What, for me?" I blinked.

            She snorted. "Sometimes, Guardian, you think entirely too much of yourself."

"So I've been told." I said neutrally.

"Nah, I'm going back into business. And there's this annoying little conflict-of-interest logic gate that technically, legally, left Cecil in charge of my entire business empire while I did my time as a public servant."

"And you obviously couldn't have that…"

"Exactly! He was running it into the data sea! I don't see why I couldn't have remained in charge…I'll have to spend minutes recovering from this disaster!"

"Well, I can see how it would be a conflict of interest…" I hazarded.

"Conflict? Hardly…" She smirked. "It would have served my interests _perfectly_!"

We both laughed. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that Ms. Matrix would have made an excellent virus.

"So who'd you leave in charge?" I asked casually, trying not to sound too interested. I did have a bit of a personal stake in Mainframe, after all. "Phong?"

"Oh, no. He's a System Operator for life, that one." Dot waved a hand "Possibly even beyond – you know how he is. No, I think AndrAIa will do a good job looking after the system."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, she looked after Enzo for minutes!" Dot grinned. "I've done both, and trust me, keeping the system running is much, much easier."


	9. Twilight Zone : Academic Integrity

I placed my notes on the podium and stared out over the small classroom. Eight very serious cadets looked back at me, and I closed my eyes briefly. I could handle this. Taking a deep breath, I began.

            "My name is Bob, Guardian 452, and I am your instructor for this class. You may all be wondering why you all are here – I think I can answer that. From what Turbo has told me, all of you have, at one time or another, expressed opinions that run contrary to the current interpretation of the Guardian Protocol."

            Some muttering at that. Good.

            "I'm not here to tell you your ideas are wrong – on the contrary, the fact that I'm standing here in front of you today is proof that not only do non-standard approaches to combating viruses and dealing with other malicious code work, but that in many cases they work better than what the protocol says. This isn't a tutorial on how to fight viruses. In the course of this class, we're going to take a look at how viruses, codemasters, and other formats work, and develop our own strategies to combat them. The guardian protocol is not upgrading fast enough to deal with the increasingly powerful viruses we've been seeing. At the moment, we're under a silent siege, not only from the outside, but from within. People are losing faith in our effectiveness, and they're right, for the most part. You eight, you're the Guardians of the future, and you aren't going to let the Collective stagnate."

            There were a few surprised looks – was this not what they were expecting? Well, it was what they were going to get.

            "This is going to be primarily a discussion class, but we will be working hands-on with viruses if I can get the proper permissions through. As it is, though, I'd like to take a roll call, and introduce you all to each other. You're all going to be working together very closely for the duration of the course." I looked at the relevant datapad. "Okay then…Cadet Catia?"

            A cadet raised her hand. She was a pale purplish-pink, with white hair, as tall as some of the boys in the class. I gave her an encouraging smile, then continued.

            "Chainik?"

            "Enigma?" 

"Hal?" This sprite was a deep near-black in coloration, with matte grey hair and red eyes – medium height, he was sitting near the back inconspicuously. He nodded as I called his name.

"Er…Jolix?"

"Lunesby." I hadn't been expecting Turbo's pink-haired secretary to be here – her manner was, as before, by-the-book, and when she spared a glance at her classmates it was with barely-concealed contempt. If this was an attempt by Turbo to keep an eye on me, it was a very obvious one. Not that Turbo seemed the subtle sort, mind.

"Mel?" The tallest of the sprites, his brown hair was cut close to his head. His pale ivory body was rail-thin, and he seemed to be a quiet sort. I had to call his name twice before he realized I was talking about him, and then he just narrowed his eyes at me.

            "Valence?" I had noticed this sprite as soon as I had entered – his blue-purple skin was flecked with silvery freckles and a tattoo on his left cheek, and his orange-yellow hair was in serious disarray. He scowled at me when I called his name, then reverted to what appeared to be his standard 'sullen' expression. He would be trouble. 

            "Okay, now, let's start moving furniture." The class stared at me blankly for a moment. "There's absolutely no way any of us are going to learn anything if I just stand here and talk." I hopped down from the podium, and accessed the classroom configuration specs. Glitch was a major help, and I soon had cleared space within a circle of nine chairs.

            "First things first. Somebody define a virus for me. Let's start with the basics." I looked down at the datapad. "Cadet Jolix?"

            The deep teal boy frowned thoughtfully. "A destructive format." 

            A bit general for my taste. "Uh…good…anyone else?"

            "A being that, like, spreads itself through systems." I had immediately taken a dislike to this silver-skinned sprite – her manner was rather vacant, and she seemed rather more interested in _me_ than whatever concepts I was teaching. I was unused to being stared at, at least like _that_. It was discomfiting.

            "That's more a worm, Enigma. A virus needs help spreading itself across the Net."

            "A program that embeds copies of itself in other programs, corrupting their function." Leave it to Lunesby to give the answer straight out of the relevant datafile. I sighed. 

            "Yes….Basically, most of these. Some viruses have no function other than to propagate themselves, others have a specific function to carry out. Usually, though not always, this involves the total infection or destruction of the system. In this class, we are going to be covering worms and Trojans as well as viruses. There are clear distinctions between classes of malignants – they're not all viruses. Some of them aren't even really malignant. I've had personal experience in dealing with an infectious virus and a chaos virus – by that I mean a virus that deleted programs instead of infecting them. I assume most of you have watched that awful docudrama that Mike produced?" Everyone nodded except for Mel, who shrugged and quietly said he didn't watch TV. 

            "…yeah." I said. "So, class, what do you think motivates a virus?"

            "Eh…" Hal tilted his head at me. "Greed?" I pursed my lips…a bit _too_ close to home.

            "More general, I think…anyone?" I glanced around the room. 

            Valence narrowed his eyes. "Same as anyone. Self-interest."

            I nodded. "That's not always true, but it's a good thing to remember, as it goes for most. As a rule viruses think first and foremost of themselves and their function. They don't _have_ charitable urges. If they cooperate with you, there's a reason. Don't assume that they're doing _anything_ out of the metaphorical goodness of their cores. Key term here – ego. A virus thinks of people in two ways – inferiors, to exploit, or equals, to compete with. Viruses acknowledge _no_ superiors. They consider themselves and their function the most important thing in the Net."

            "Another key term – symbolism." I watched the class scribble that down, morbidly amused. "Victory for a virus is not only achievement of his goal, but the utter humiliation of his enemies. Grudges aren't forgotten, and scores are settled in full. Public image is important. Viruses react very badly to being objects of public ridicule – that can be used against them, but mostly it simply makes them needlessly angry. And if an angry virus can't get at you personally, he'll resort to killing any convenient civilians to flush you out into the open. It's generally better to deal with a virus professionally – keep it between you and him. Remember, your primary concern is the system and its inhabitants. Any mistake you make can delete people, and you've got to remember that." 

            "Not all viruses are the same. Tactics that work with some are ineffective on others. Having a fair idea of how a specific virus thinks can give you an edge against them – and in most dealings with viruses, deletion is on the line. Keep in mind that viruses aren't tears, or bugs – they're intelligent. They can reason and be reasoned with if you know what they want. This, despite what previous instructors may have told you, is a valid option in dealing with viruses - part of what this class is all about! A détente is often less destructive to the system and its inhabitants than the cost of fully uprooting a virus would be. Personal experience, here."

            The class was scribbling frantically, and I paused to let them catch up. In creating the syllabus for the course I had been struck by the ignorance of the Collective in basic facts of viral life, things that I assumed the Collective would naturally take an interest in. Certainly I would never have let myself be so ignorant of how things really worked in Mainframe (which was, more or less, by the will of Dot). Some education, and perhaps an introduction of a solution set that doesn't necessarily involve large explosions, might help.

            Not that I had anything _against _large explosions, mind. It just seemed like the Collective was overly eager to destroy their own infrastructure given half an excuse. While I had been guilty of the same on occasion, it helped my cause in context, while rather undermining the supposed ethos of 'Mend and Defend'. I was beginning to have suspicions about the true motivations of the Collective – but that wasn't something I was about to bring up in class. At least not yet, anyway. Seeing the majority of the class looking up at me expectantly, I continued. Cadet Valence could resume staring sullenly out the window, for all I cared…he reminded me of the larger Enzo, except possibly even less mature. 

            Other than the genocidal Viral Incident team training, the subject of viruses was never dealt with in as much depth as it deserved. The indoctrination of the cadets to the desired format was rather thorough – I was _quite _impressed.  But that was irrelevant to the lecture, and I did not bring my …personal biases…into it. After a while, even Valence stopped passing notes and started taking them.

            "The danger that a virus poses is not simply a question of its power, it is a question of its intelligence. Successful viruses come in all varieties, and the competition between them ensures that only the best survive. In many cases, these are the most powerful – but a less powerful virus must survive on its wits alone, and these are often more dangerous. Generally, a virus' intelligence is inversely relational to its power – viruses like Daemon and Hexadecimal exhibited the intelligence of a child, while others, such as Iris, Gadfly, Megabyte, or Tetracycle posed similar threats because they were intelligent enough to use what power they had in novel and efficient ways. While Daemon certainly is, so far, in a class consisting only of herself, viruses have been increasing in complexity as the Net continues to grow. The Guardian Collective, and the protocol it perpetuates, must adapt to face these new threats. Later in this course, we will go further in-depth into the ways viruses are changing in this second, and why finding new approaches is a necessity if we are to maintain the bastion of integrity and freedom that is the Net." I paused; taking a long breath, then glanced at the local iteration of the system clock and winced. We had gone _well_ over time. "Any questions? If you need to get to a class, you're free to go. Er. Sorry about that."

            Half the class left. The rest were looking at me in a manner that could only be described as predatory. I felt a sudden apprehension sweep over me. 


	10. Twilight Zone : Dark Sarcasm

"So…" Cadet Valence said, in a tone that was deceptively casual. "_Did_ you go down with her?"

            To say the question took me by surprise would be an understatement. My notes, which I had picked up, clattered to the floor as I stared at the boy, who was smirking in a most obnoxious fashion. The other three boys that had stayed-  Chainik, Jolix, and Mel - were watching avidly, and, I saw, quite prepared to let Mr. Valence take the fall for this little stunt – whether or not he was actually behind it. My mouth snapped shut abruptly, and I took a step towards the golden-haired cadet.

            "I beg your pardon?" Control. I wasn't sure what they were trying to get at here, but I'd give the boy one chance to dig himself out of the hole he dug himself into.  And only one.

            "The chaos virus, what's her name. Hexadecimal. Were you two an item, or what?"

            I blinked, and then blinked again. "Uh…" I said, mind racing to construct a coherent answer. Why did they have to bring my sister into it? I'd already waited too long, as the grins on the students' faces were attesting. And Cadet Jolix had asked earlier to record the lecture – split! 

            Truth couldn't hurt. "No." Other than the one time we merged with the web-creature, but I wasn't going to blow my cover on their stupid prank.

            "Apparently you weren't watching the same vids of Daemon rising that I was, then." Valence grinned at me cheekily. I honestly had not expected this tack – what was he trying to prove? The fact that he was in this class in the first place indicated some problem with authority, but this level of immaturity should have gotten him kicked out of the Academy long ago.  

            "To answer your patently absurd question…" I started, then winced internally. That wasn't a Bob phrase _at all_, and it sounded really weird spoken with his voice. "No. I did not have a 'relationship' with Hexadecimal. We were not an 'item', or whatever the latest slang is. Before you get it in your fool head to ask, I did not engage in software exchange with her, or compromise my protocol. The last memory I have of her is her rather rudely assisting her brother in trapping me in the Web. Does that answer your question, _Cadet_?"

            "So you _are_ the copy. I was wondering...how did that little mix-up resolve, anyway?" 

            I stared at him, aghast. I knew that copying was a very sensitive subject among sprites, and to bring it up like that in such a setting…even the other sprites in the room looked appalled. "Are you –trying- to get expelled, Cadet?" 

            "Of course not." Valence smiled insincerely, and I entertained thoughts of physically hurting him. "I was just wondering what you thought of the handling of the Daemon infection – given the course title is 'New Approaches to Viral Dataforms', and you're allegedly the expert on the subject, who better than you to critique the 'approaches' used there?" The innuendo was still clearly obvious in his tone, and I scowled. 

            "Get out." I said quietly.

            "A sensitive subject?"

            "Get _OUT!_" I snarled, and the remaining students jumped. Valence blinked at me, and then swiftly made his exit. I turned to look at the remaining students, who were gathering up their own stuff.

            "And just where do you think you're going?" I asked, control firmly reestablished. The other cadets looked at me nervously. I smiled thinly.

            "I wasn't compiled this second," I said quietly. "I know exactly what happened here, and I'm fairly sure the original idea for that little _prank_ originated in this group. Now, do any of you have anything to say for yourselves before I have a _long_ chat with the Prime Guardian about disciplinary options?"

            Shifty faces all around. I sighed, and then suddenly barked "Cadet Chainik!"

            The look on his face was priceless. "I didn't mean it!" He paused "I mean…uh…"

            "Do go on." I smiled. He made a nervous sound in the back of his throat.

            "I thought it would be kinda…I mean, there's all sorts of speculation _anyway_…I thought we could get a real answer, you know. Something we can tell our friends. Cause people are fairly sure that virus didn't off and save the net out of the goodness of her heart, you know…"

            I blinked at him. "Well. It's a bit of a complicated situation, frankly. I don't know half of it myself – because I wasn't there. But if you really want to know…"

            Relieved smiles all around. My face twitched into a smirk. "It'd be a good idea for you to listen, certainly – I'm expecting a paper from all of you at the end of the cycle. So…ah…do take notes?"      

            I picked up my own notes and returned to the podium. "I'm approaching this from three angles – symbolism, function, and self-interest. These are what drive most viruses, and they apply here as anywhere. This isn't some sort of miracle for a virus to behave this way...I'm going to demonstrate that it makes perfect sense. Or at least reasonable sense. I can't claim to understand all of it, of course."

            "My personal experiences with Hexadecimal are of the pre-fragmented state, in which she nearly destroyed the city of Mainframe several times on various whims. Chaos viruses are very dangerous. That cannot be stressed enough."

            "As for her little…thing for me – I think it was a minor factor. I was aware of it – I don't pretend to know the cause and certainly I never gave her reason to believe it was reciprocal. It was, to be honest, very creepy. From what I've heard, the…other Bob, managed to defragment her somehow after she had a near-deletion experience that she only survived because of her brother's plans requiring her functional. Viruses do acknowledge…debts, sort of – if another being has demonstrated personal power over them, their ego more or less demands that the scale be balanced." An awkward way to put it, but accurate. To a point. "I think the three points I raised earlier have far more to do with her actions. Symbolically, the other Bob was sought after by the most powerful virus in the Net. In the unconscious viral games of prestige, that made him quite a valuable playing piece. The entire invasion of Mainframe and defeat of Daemon can be seen as a power game between Hex and the supervirus – a dangerous game indeed. We-when Viruses play, they play for high stakes indeed. And letting someone else win is anathema to a virus. Simply to sit back and do –nothing- while the game was won once and for all is not something any virus would do – it's not anything specific to Hex. A virus believes that the Net is woven around their  function- the dispersal of their code is key, and self-interest for them takes on new dimensions. Self-destructing is a valid viral approach to defeat – especially if they can take their enemies out with them. In going through that portal, Hex _won_ the game of status – she dispersed her code throughout the entire net, foiled her enemy's function, made a place for herself in history, and managed to show up her brother, all in one action. That's more than most viruses can brag of in a lifetime..." I was not bitter. Well, maybe a _tad._

"Function. Function is a major thing- if you understand a virus's function fully you know the rules that govern its behavior. Often times these appear almost nonsensical,  but if you know the rules, playing viruses off against each other allows you to gather strength in your own right. They're playing the game right back at you at the same time, of course – the Guardian protocol is quite inflexible in places and this has and will be exploited by viruses into the conceivable future. Know your limitations and cover them as best you can. In Hex's case, her function was chaotic, to say the least – though she never stated her function, it can be inferred from her actions. Daemon wanted to impose the ultimate order on the Net – Hex found that anathema. And also…this one is a bit of a stretch, mind…I've found that hatred can find a reason for everything. It is infinitely self-rationalizing, and it makes its own order. Love…well…love doesn't need a reason. It's inherently chaotic in and of itself…and maybe falling in love was the ultimate expression of Hex's purpose. Maybe."

"I'm not going to tell you my conclusions, because, frankly, it's up to you to make your own conclusions here. I'm expecting an original 56k .txt from each of you by the end of the cycle, with supporting video evidence if you can. But…ah…keep it tasteful?"

Needless to say, it was with considerable relief that I watched the class finally file out glumly. Now, to business….


End file.
